“Truly a celebration for the eyes.” “A dance-conjuration in the spirit of the baroque.” “Sending shivers up the spine.” “One feels strangely moved, indeed shaken.” The impressions of four eyewitnesses, this euphoric litany was inspired by Verklungene Feste: Tanzvisionen aus Zwei Jahrhunderten, which had its premiere at Munich's Nationaltheater on April 5, 1941. Choreographed by Pia and Pino Mlakar, Verklungene Feste was comprised of reconstructions of baroque dances from Raoul Auger Feuillet's monumental Choréographie ou l'art de décrire la danse par caractères, figures et signes démonstratifs (Orchesography or the art of dancing, by characters and demonstrative figures, 1700). The Mlakars combined these eighteenth-century dances with newly composed ones in the style of the nineteenth century—that is, romantic ballet, with solo and group numbers that concentrated on Spitzentanz, or dance en pointe. For the musical component of this museumlike spectacle, Richard Strauss revisited his Tanzsuite aus Klavierstücken von François Couperin from the first tableau of the 1923 Viennese Ballettsoirée. Strauss expanded the Tanzsuite and shuffled in several numbers from a more recent collection of arrangements, eventually published as Divertimento: Klavierstücke von François Couperin für kleines Orchester bearbeitet von Richard Strauss (1942).